Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/732

 authority and approbation of the aforesaid council, this is to be noted, that during the life of Sigismund, the emperor, no man resisted this council. Also, during the time of Charles VII., the French king, the said council of Basil was fully and wholly received through all France. But, after the death of Sigismund, when Eugene was deposed, and Felix, duke of Savoy, was elected pope, great discords arose, and much practice was wrought, but especially on Eugene's part; who, being now excommunicated by the council of Basil, to make his party more strong, made eighteen new cardinals. Then he sent his orators unto the Germans, labouring by all persuasions to dissolve the council of Basil. The Germans, at that time, were so divided, that some of them did hold with Felix and the council of Basil; others with Eugene and the council of Ferrara; and some were neuters. After this, the French king being dead, who was Charles VII., about 1444, the pope beginneth a new practice, after the old guise of Rome, to excite, as is supposed, the dauphin of France, by force of arms, to dissipate that council collected against him. Who, leading an army of fifteen thousand men into Alsace, did cruelly waste and spoil the country; and, after that, laid siege unto Basil, to expel and drive out the prelates of the council. But the Helvetians, most stoutly meeting their enemies, with a small power did vanquish the Frenchmen, and put them to sword and away by flight; like as the Lacedemonians, with only three hundred, did suppress and scatter all the mighty army of Xerxes at Thermopylæ. Although Basil, by the valiantness of the Helvetians, was thus defended, yet, notwithstanding, the council, through these tumults, could not continue by reason of the princes' ambassadors, who shrunk away and would not tarry; so that at length Eugene brought to pass, partly through the help of Frederic (being not yet emperor, but labouring for the empire), partly by his orators (in the number of whom was Æneas Sylvius, above mentioned, amongst the Germans), that they were content to give over, both the council of Basil, and Basil, their neutrality.

This Frederic of Austria being not yet emperor, but looking towards the empire, brought also to pass, that Felix, who was chosen of the council of Basil to be pope, was contented to renounce and resign his papacy to Nicholas V., successor to Eugene, by which Nicholas the said Frederic was confirmed at Rome to be emperor, and there crowned, 1451.

As these things were doing at Basil, in the mean season pope Eugene brought to pass, in his convocation at Florence, that the emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople, with the rest of the Grecians there present, were persuaded to receive the sentence of the church of Rome, concerning the proceedings of the Holy Ghost; also to receive the communion in unleavened bread, to admit purgatory, and to yield themselves to the authority of the Romish bishop. Whereunto, notwithstanding, the other churches of Grecia would in no wise assent, at their coming home; insomuch that with a public execration they did condemn, afterwards, all those legates who had consented to these articles, that none of them should be buried in christian burial: which was, 1439.